I saw the Royal Opera House perfomance of Puccini's Madame Butterfly yesterday at Stroud Cinema. Although this isn't my favourite opera, tears were pouring down my cheeks at the end & I was emotionally drained. Liping Zhang as Cio Cio San was sublime. The streaming of live ballets & operas is absolutely brilliant & gives everyone the opportunity to see wonderful & moving performances by the worlds best opera & ballet stars. Very democratic.
Co-incidentally at the same time I am reading "China Road" by Rob Gifford. This recounts his journey from Shanghai in the East to Korgaz on the border with Kazakhstan in the North West, along Route 312, which is part of the Old Silk Road. The fascinating revelations about life in China & the historical & political background to 21stC China make compelling reading. "Chinese civilisation began it's rise to world dominance in the 7th & 8th centuries, & reached it's zenith in the 12th C, while Europe was still in the Dark & Middle Ages". When this book was published in 2007 China had a population of 750 million despite the fact that 30 million people died in Mao's Great Leap Forward. I find those numbers incomprehensible.
Both of these current experiences remind me of the trip to China I did in 1999. It was a regular tourist trail & we had a tour guide / minder, but it was a really interesting trip because it pointed up the huge cultural differences there are between China & the West. Sadly China is still very little understood by people in the West & we still tend to have very perjorative attitudes to China. I came back both deeply frustrated by & hugely admiring of the Chinese. It's a dichotomy which is unresolved today.
So, I am looking forward to the documentary on channel 4 tonight - "China: Triumph & Turmoil". As China's star rises & America & the West wanes we need to come to a better understanding of both China & Asia in general. We need to stop thinking of ourselves & our "democratic" ways as the template for all govenment & get rid of our patronising, imperialist & colonialist attitudes. The pace of change in China is startling, but a country this big & diverse geographically, with such a mind bogglingly big population, poses huge problems. We in the West can't sort out our financial crisis, which we ourselves created by our greed. So who are we to tell the Chinese how to solve the undoubted huge obstacles to progress in their country?
Co-incidentally at the same time I am reading "China Road" by Rob Gifford. This recounts his journey from Shanghai in the East to Korgaz on the border with Kazakhstan in the North West, along Route 312, which is part of the Old Silk Road. The fascinating revelations about life in China & the historical & political background to 21stC China make compelling reading. "Chinese civilisation began it's rise to world dominance in the 7th & 8th centuries, & reached it's zenith in the 12th C, while Europe was still in the Dark & Middle Ages". When this book was published in 2007 China had a population of 750 million despite the fact that 30 million people died in Mao's Great Leap Forward. I find those numbers incomprehensible.
Both of these current experiences remind me of the trip to China I did in 1999. It was a regular tourist trail & we had a tour guide / minder, but it was a really interesting trip because it pointed up the huge cultural differences there are between China & the West. Sadly China is still very little understood by people in the West & we still tend to have very perjorative attitudes to China. I came back both deeply frustrated by & hugely admiring of the Chinese. It's a dichotomy which is unresolved today.
So, I am looking forward to the documentary on channel 4 tonight - "China: Triumph & Turmoil". As China's star rises & America & the West wanes we need to come to a better understanding of both China & Asia in general. We need to stop thinking of ourselves & our "democratic" ways as the template for all govenment & get rid of our patronising, imperialist & colonialist attitudes. The pace of change in China is startling, but a country this big & diverse geographically, with such a mind bogglingly big population, poses huge problems. We in the West can't sort out our financial crisis, which we ourselves created by our greed. So who are we to tell the Chinese how to solve the undoubted huge obstacles to progress in their country?
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